Bedtime

During the day Archie's constant running leads one to conclude he's a toddler, but at night he's still quite the baby! When we put on his blanket sleeper, he knows bedtime is coming. (Bedtime is still at 7 p.m., by the way!)
While Archie has always been very good about bedtime and sleeping through the night, last week he decided to challenge us some. (Thankfully, he's already reverted back to his old bedtime disposition.) After a prebedtime crying bout, we found him asleep in this position.
I guess it was comfortable because here's a closeup of his face while his legs were sticking out. He looks pretty peaceful anyway.

Happy Birthday, Leslie!

Although I was at first a bit nervous about the Big 26 (since this is my first year being closer to 30 than 20), I ended up having a fantastic birthday! We celebrated THREE times! About 10 days after my birthday, we got together with friends and went to my favorite Hong Kong restaurant. (Hong Kong food is quite different from the food where we live and very delicious!)



On my actual birthday, March 9, I had a cold so we decided to stay home and have a family celebration. Archie thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to feed himself some cake. (We figured we'd celebrate him a little, too, since his year-and-a-half birthday was the next week - March 15!)



I don't have any pics from the third celebration :( but it was great, too! The music teacher at our school watched Archie while Hunter took me out to dinner at one of the nice hotels in town. We enjoyed a great buffet, featuring Asian and Western options! The Western options even included gourmet hand dipped ice cream and a chocolate fountain!

Who stole the cookies from the cookie jar?

I think this cookie spill was intentional. What baby doesn't like cookies?

Playmates, phones and cars

Who says boys don't like to talk on the phone? Archie's friend Aiden came over the other night while his parents were out and we had a blast! Aiden is 5 months older than Archie so Archie totally idolizes him. Whatever Aiden was doing, Archie had to be doing, too. In keeping with the culture here, Archie calls him (well, when he can speak he'll call him) Older Brother.


When Archie was riding the car, Aiden would get bored and go do something else. However, when Aiden was riding, Archie couldn't leave his hero's side so he would push.

Glasses Glamor!

While we were in Thailand, the doctor confirmed suspicions we'd been having for a long while. Archie is cross-eyed. (It's pretty obvious in a lot of pics - including these.) Thus, we purchased his first pair of glasses on our trip to Korea.

He needs to be wearing the glasses full-time by no later than the end of April because our next appointment with the pediatric ophthalmologist is at the end of June and that was the stipulation. It's pretty difficult to get him to keep them on, though. For the first week, he screamed anytime we came near him with the glasses because he thought he might be getting his eyes dilated again - which proved a much more traumatic experience for him than getting a shot in each leg at the pediatrician's right before. Thankfully, he's over that now. Grandma is sending a special strap from America for the back of his head, which we hope helps keep the glasses in place. Right now, we have our best success getting him to wear them at meal time and snack time when he is preoccupied. Hence, all the banana pics.

Eeew! Do I have to wear these?

Studious Archie

Curious Archie

Hungry Archie

Silly Archie

Birthday or Birth Day?

Another year has rolled around, and I've hit the big 26! (My first year being closer to 30 than 20 - seems weird!) Rather than plastering my blog with birthday with glamor shots of me, I thought I'd give an update on the upcoming BIRTH DAY of Peanut#2.

Here are some ultrasound pics from when I was 14 weeks. We're going to try to find out the gender in April, but if you want to make any early guesses, feel free! I'm progressively starting to revise my initial gut feeling of another boy, to become more in line with the 67% of you who guessed girl in my December Poll. (Lot's of differences between this time around and being pregnant with Archie.)



This pic is kind of neat because it has a diagram with the heartbeat at the bottom.

Just for fun, here's a pic of me with a few friends in Thailand last year before we delivered. Who do you think went first? Second? Last? I was actually #2 but all our babies were born within 2 months and I was only second by 4 days to the girl on the opposite end.



****
For those of you who noticed our technical difficulties with the scooter videos in the post below, they're working now so check it out!

Preschool funnies!

Archie now attends a local preschool for a whopping three hours a week. He's the youngest kiddo in class by 5-10 months.

FAVORITE QUOTE from teacher (about his walking): He's not very stable but he doesn't cry when he falls down! (Yea for our tough little guy!)

Me to Hunt: Ummm...I think he may be bullying the older kids. His teacher says he wanders around snatching their food at snack time....I guess at least he's not picking on the small and weak!

Scooter Videos

Archie's new scooter runs solely off foot power, but it does have a cool battery operated button that plays duck songs when you press it. (I pretty much hear duck noises all day now except when he's sleeping, but at least I can keep track of where he is easier :))

Archie's legs are still a hair too short to get much forward motion without some parental assistance, but he can scoot himself backwards. He also loves walking behind the scooter and pushing it.

My videography isn't too great here. I can't figure out how to not make them sideways either, but they're super short (about 12 seconds each) so enjoy!







I was trying to get him to say "thank you," but no real luck. I think that he was playing with my emotions.

Archie's first scooter!

Archie is now riding in style. After he fell in love with riding toys in both Korea and Thailand, I decided it was time to make a purchase. Yesterday, Hunter and I set off for the toy store with baby in tow. Archie immediately fell in love with this duck scooter. He didn't even want to get off long enough for me to pay! If you're wondering why he's in his diaper in the next two pics, it's because he bolted away from me after his diaper change this afternoon for some playtime before I could even get him dressed!)


This pic is from last night. Archie was in baby paradise. Cell phone in one hand, other hand on scooter. He looks like a traffic controller or something. Archie, careful talking while driving!

Teeth Brushing Like a Big Boy!

Archie's come a long way in the world of oral hygiene from...

His first finger toothbrush...(We had to stop because he was using his molars to bite my finger)...To...
Sitting in Daddy's lap and brushing his own teeth!

OK, honestly, we still brush for him to make sure all teeth get squeaky clean! As you can tell from the pic, he loves it and we encourage his love for dental hygiene by letting him take the brush out for a supervised spin once we're done!

Here's the display of his oral hygiene products!

There's no place like home!

After being gone for over two weeks, we were wondering if Archie would even remember our house. Thankfully, he got settled in and delightfully reacquainted with all his toys in a matter of minutes. He even adjusted to sleeping in his own room (as opposed to in a pack-in-play beside our bed) by the second day! Pretty amazing!

He certainly enjoys playing with the bubbles Grandma DeJ sent. Thank you, Grandma!